Table 2 of the 2006 study pdf tabulated solar cycle lengths, sunspot minimum to minimum and sunspot maximum to maximum, from 1610.8 to 2000.3. The most recent solar cycle lengths in this table, 9.7 and 10.7, were much shorter than average. Furthermore, this particular table showed no indication of the predicted future cycle length growth. More recent data,http://www.solen.info/solar/polarfields/polar.html, is now available showing the latest, much longer, solar cycle lengths. These are shown in red in my update to the table.

The max to max 2000.3 to 2014.3 cycle length of 14.0 years and min to min 1996.5 to 2008.9 cycle length of 12.4 years are the longest cycle lengths since the max to max 1788.1 to 1805.2 17.1 year and min to min 1810.6 to 1823.3 cycle lengths! Interestingly, these particular cycles both precede and coincide with the 1797-1826 Dalton Prolonged Minimum.

Like this:

Related

So, because the three years are so close, the real SC23 peak year is debatable. If it was actually 2001 or 2002, that would shorten the 14 years to either 13 or 12 years. The SWPC is calling for the minimum by the end of 2019. If you are right and SC24 is closer to 14 years min to min then that would push us out to 2022. I will incorporate these possibilities into my solar model.

Of course the cycle length estimates are different using F10.7 data instead of the traditional sunspot number data that I used. The problem with using solar flux data instead of sunspot data is that reliable F10.7 cycle length estimates only go back to 2004, so comparison with Dalton Minimum cycle length estimates is not possible with this data.

A weaker periodicity was also identified from the PDM analysis with
an average period of 21.90 ± 0.66 years over a range from ∼20 – 24 years.

Unless I missed it, they never again refer to this finding or relate it to the solar magnetic period. Perhaps not central to their argument but seems interesting to me that it comes out of a pure analysis of the sunspot numbers, with utterly no consideration of the reversal of polarity in the hemispheres in consecutive 11-year cycles.

A paper written in 2006 by David Archibald discusses cycle length and its affect on global temperature. Predictions were made by the author and others of longer cycles and a drop in temperature for cycles 24 and 25.

Slightly further back, in 2005, Svalgaard, Cliver and Kamide predicted a maximum of 75 for solar cycle 24. About 9 years later NASA Marshall originally assigned cycle 24 a maximum of 72, but because of an extended 2nd peak they reassigned it a maximum of 81.9. That the 2005 prediction of 75 was so close to reality 9 years later shows an understanding of the science behind solar cycle length. “A longer range prediction is provided by Schatten and Tobiska (2003) who predicted “a rapid decline in solar activity, starting with cycle #24. If this trend continues, we may see the Sun heading towards a “Maunder” type of solar activity minimum – an extensive period of reduced levels of solar activity.” Landscheidt (2003) comes to a similar conclusion based on the variable torque applied to the Sun by the movements of the giant planets and their impact on solar eruptive activity.”

The difference in temperature between a 14 year solar cycle and the average 11 year cycle is approximately 1 degree Celsius. If this comes to pass it will completely erase NASA’s purported 0.8 degree Celsius increase since 1880. This is the same NASA that also says: “In the past, a one- to two-degree drop was all it took to plunge the Earth into the Little Ice Age.”

Another chart, this time showing the latest 150 year period, demonstrates the relationship between cycle length and temperature anomaly. Note that cycle length on the Y-axis is inverse so the graph lines can be better compared. Also note that it spans just 10 to 12 year solar cycles. The 14 year cycle that Gerry observed (Max to Max) is literally off the chart!

Solar cycle 24 could be the lowest since cycle 5. The two cycles started 210 years apart (1798, 2008) which is around the length of the de Vries cycle.

‘Just as we had about 100 years of an underlying warming due to the de Vries cycle in the 20th century, we are in for an underlying cooling through the 21st century in response to the de Vries solar cycle. This underlying trend will be modulated by the ups and downs of the AMO and the PDO. Carbon dioxide concentrations are largely irrelevant.’

Back in 2010, Kristóf Petrovay wrote “The incipient cycle 24 will probably mark the end of the Modern Maximum, with the Sun switching to a state of less strong activity. It will therefore be an important testbed for cycle prediction methods and, by inference, for our understanding of the solar dynamo.” http://solarphysics.livingreviews.org/Articles/lrsp-2010-6/

Back in 2006 Hathaway and Wilson predicted a sunspot number of 160 plus or minus 25 for Solar Cycle 24 with the maximum peak occurring around 2010. This would have made it one of the strongest in recorded history. Ah, well, somebody has to be wrong I suppose.

The closure of the Isthmus of Panama was the key to fire-hosing North America. The band of glacially-carved lakes across the Canadian shield corresponds with maximum daily July precipitation, which is uplifted and cooled orographically when there’s an ice mountain in the temperature lapse profile:
There’s an analogy with solar cycle deceleration (SCD), which should not be confused and/or conflated with solar cycle length (SCL). It’s on a much smaller scale, but it’s analogous. It’s not enough to just think of SCD in the temporal domain. Understanding hinges on conceptualization in a spatiotemporal domain, because in reality there are spatial dimensions. The predictions by Archibald and others (based on SCL) are (very seriously) misleading because they ignore SCD. This needs to be stressed again: SCD is informing about SPATIAL gradients on earth. Probably a lot of people who take a maliciously biased glance at it only interpret it as something to do with a time rate of change of solar activity, but that’s completely missing the point about what it means ON EARTH for equator-pole spatial flux topology evolution. The waves hit the equator and travel poleward. They do so more easily in the north (due to land-ocean geometry). The spacing of the waves is governed by SCD.

I wanted to point out that the neutron flux may produce a magnetic field.
“When a neutron is put into a magnetic field produced by an external source, it is subject to a torque tending to orient its magnetic moment parallel to the field (hence its spin antiparallel to the field).[19] Like any magnet, the amount of this torque is proportional both to the magnetic moment and the external magnetic field. Since the neutron has spin angular momentum, this torque will cause the neutron to precess with a well-defined frequency, called the Larmor frequency. It is this phenomenon that enables the measurement of nuclear properties through nuclear magnetic resonance. The Larmor frequency can be determined by the product of the gyromagnetic ratio with the magnetic field strength. Since the sign of γn is negative, the neutron’s spin angular momentum precesses counterclockwise about the direction of the external magnetic field.”http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neutron_magnetic_moment

If the solar cycle is decelerating, that means it’s getting longer.
If the solar cycle is accelerating, that means it’s getting shorter.

Important to understand conceptually:
The correlation between SCD & SCL is close to zero (by the definition of orthogonality).
(The only reason it’s not exactly zero is because of any secular SCL trend.)

Another way to conceptualize this is with fractional differintegrals, but the traditional way to write down the differential equations is with orthogonal terms: integral, 0th derivative, 1st derivative, 2nd derivative, and usually stop there, considering higher order derivatives negligible — the secular trend is captured in the integral.

For earth the 1st derivative governs the pacing of spatial (regional) aberrations from the global attractor (central limit). It’s the tachometer on the pump that sprays the regional aberrations. It’s not complicated at all, but the politics blocking it’s acknowledgement (it’s a simple geometric proof, so in a logical axiomatic framework it’s a slam dunk) are so monstrous it basically (in a frugal time & resource management framework based on the Pareto Principle) isn’t worth the trouble. Eventually there will be a regime shift. It will happen easily & effortlessly when the time is naturally ripe. That may or may not be within our lifetimes.

For those who are really confused:
SCD should neither be confused nor conflated with sunspot integral (RI), which governs the global attractor. SCD governs the regional spatial aberrations about the global RI attractor. This framework is based on central limits at multi-decadal timescales. It sees through the interannual variations. It’s important to understand that it’s a geometric proof. You can’t make one solar cycle longer without shortening another one. All you can do is move the dividers. Mathematically the roots are the same as for any balanced differential — e.g. a+b=1, a+b+c=1, a+b+c+d=1, etc. These are the roots of statistical paradox in multi-axial settings, such as fluid thermodynamics. It’s pretty funny watching people chasing the small turbulent bubbles without ever even thinking to identify the upscale attractors. The core curriculum in our weak western education system does not cover the needed fundamentals. In the 17 years I spent in and around universities I only ever encountered a single professor qualified to teach the philosophy of aggregation criteria adequately. I encountered 2 others who tried but failed. The west could easily sink for no other reason than the way China is kicking our *sses with their dramatically superior math education system. Why our governments think it’s ok to keep running this fatal math education deficit (?) … I would have to stop and speculate…

Don’t underestimate the sensitivity & nonlinearity introduced hemispherically by those mountains ringing Davis Strait & Baffin Bay. Small movement of the rain/snow line on the lapse profile makes for a big difference (freshwater runoff versus reflecting latent storage). It’s no wonder the ice ages start where they do. And the sensitivity we have at multidecadal timescales is no wonder given the intersection of meridional heat & water flux with Greenland. It’s an exact analogy with 100ka maximum (not to be confused with mean = average as some deliberately do to politically obfuscate) equatorial insolation. The local mountains where I live accumulated 9 meters of snow (30 feet) one winter. So can you image what happens when the snow season rings the calendar? As the ice margins grow you have more southward ice mountains growing in elevation and doing more precipitation-sucking orographic cooling further south where it wasn’t previously possible (since the elevation was lower on the lapse profile (in the rain zone discretely (not continuously) below the snow zone) before the ice mountains came). At multidecadal timescales it’s just a more subtle thing on the slopes of Greenland (freshwater runoff versus reflecting latent storage).

Paul (or anyone),
Can you please provide a chart or some other graphical demonstration that shows how solar cycle deceleration (SCD) is superior to solar cycle length (SCL) in predicting future climate change? I’m not convinced that the mathematics alone is proof of the theory. Thank you.

More proof that aberrations from global attractor evolution are regionally sensitive & nonlinear:
Remember that the proof is based on the laws of large numbers & conservation of angular momentum. (The court judge is corrupt & incompetent. Unforgivably so.)

Greg Glenn, it’s not one or the other (SCL or SCD). It’s spatiotemporal. (That means it’s both.) We’re not talking about a theory. We’re talking about an observation constrained by the laws of large numbers & conservation of angular momentum. You can’t stretch one part of the attractor without shrinking another part of it.
The slope (rate of twist) defines SCD. An illogical axiomatic framework is needed to evade the consequences.

The SCL vector just distorts this (where land-ocean geometry permits meriodional flux).
In contrast, the Southern Ocean pressure gradient is a more stable wall. It doesn’t have a land-ocean geometry-governed hinge that opens and closes to (non-linearly) change where the fire-hose sprays, as happens in the North Atlantic.

Lindsay, you’ll find that no one wants to show the update because of how miserably it fails. People are having a hard time coming to grips with the following fact: The SCL models falsely predicted that a precipitous, long drop in global temperature should have occurred. No such thing occurred. I’ve warned the community about this error many times. I’ve been cautioning the community that the solar cycle is decelerating and that this means anomalously high northern hemisphere temperatures (…as is occurring). For some mysterious reason a lot of people have loyalties to Archibald’s ideas even when they are seriously wrong. Ignoring SCD was a very serious oversight. If you do an internet image search for “solar cycle length”, you’ll find some of the goofy predictions that forecast global temperature falling of a cliff like a stone. I judge the community to still not be ready for more sensible conception.

Let’s see another strong wave in the stratosphere over the polar circle. With this wave is combined the temperature rise in the upper stratosphere.
This year, the temperature of the stratosphere is unusual.

All of this can be unified with 100ka equator-pole Milankovitch forcing, which is a function of maximum (not average) equatorial insolation. The obfuscation artists have been hard at work mullerizing 100ka. For example there’s a model based on insolation & co2 that crowns co2 queen and downplays insolation as though a mere bit player. The model does NOT include ice sheets. A model of ice ages that doesn’t include ice sheets. (sarc) Makes total sense (/sarc) The mainstream admits the role of Jupiter-Earth-Venus coupling at Milankovitch timescale. No doubt there will be more attempts to rewrite geological history. Remember what Cuk said about climate modeling in his seminar video on JEV coupling at eccentricity timescale?

It makes no difference to my hypothesis about wavelength / particle changes affecting ozone differently at different heighs and latitudes but it does join a few dots.

We need to see how ozone changes occur at different heights and latitudes in response to changes in solar cycle deceleration and acceleration.

This all links in well with ren’s contributions which in turn tend to support ozone variations as a driver of climate variability, especially as regards so called sudden stratospheric warming events.

I content that solar variations across multiple cycles have similar effects to sudden stratospheric warmings but spread out across decades and centuries.

Sudden stratospheric warming events appear to be initiated by bottom up wave like phenomena within the atmosphere but the changes that I hypothesise over longer periods are initiated by the top down solar effects.

I would contend that both the bottom up short term effects (ocean induced) and the top down long term effects (solar induced) work on the climate system in the same way. Both processes alter the gradient of tropopause height between equator and poles leading to changes in global cloudiness which then affects the proportion of solar energy able to enter the oceans as fuel for the climate system.

PV: you refer to Abram et al 2014. Steve McIntyre reviewed this and described the paper as ‘worthless’ :

‘A reconstruction using the methods of Abram et al 2014, especially accumulating the previous screening of Neukom et al 2011, is completely worthless for estimating prior Southern Annular Mode. This is different from being “WRONG!”, the adjective that is too quickly invoked in some skeptic commentary.’

“This needs to be stressed again: SCD is informing about SPATIAL gradients on earth. Probably a lot of people who take a maliciously biased glance at it only interpret it as something to do with a time rate of change of solar activity, but that’s completely missing the point about what it means ON EARTH for equator-pole spatial flux topology evolution. The waves hit the equator and travel poleward. They do so more easily in the north (due to land-ocean geometry). The spacing of the waves is governed by SCD.”

I think that is very neat.

Does it also help with the David Evans ‘notch-delay’ theory which describes the one solar cycle time lag between sunspot changes and an observed temperature effect at the surface?

Would it be right to say that ‘ equator-pole spatial flux topology evolution’ is analogous to the changes in the gradient of tropopause height between equator and poles as per my hypothesis?

Paul, you seem to have improved your use of words to describe your concepts.I’m finding it easier to get a grip on what you mean now.

OB, I only ever communicated with McIntyre once. An article of his had been covered at wuwt and it was obvious there was a serious level 1 (as in introductory level course) error. That caused me to look at the original discussion at CA. That’s a blog I almost never visit. McIntyre tried tell me some total BS about factor analysis. He was 100% wrong and he would not back down. There was at least one other discussion participant who was acutely aware of the error. I never bothered with McIntyre before or since. I advise you to check the SAM reconstruction firsthand. And I dare you or anyone else to try to do a better job.

You mention the “decadal lag” suggested by Thomson (1995) & later Evans (2014). It was Jean Dickey (NASA JPL) who first influenced me with a convincing illustration of the decadal equator-pole waves. Neither Thomson nor Evans illustrated decadal equator-pole waves. So far as I am aware, both tried to treat a spatiotemporal series as a time series and as a consequence made interpretive errors. Interpreting natural history is an enjoyable and often challenging activity. It takes some experience & multidisciplinary breadth. Ignoring the spatial dimensions is (might as well just say it) a rookie error (that actually needs to be called squarely as such, even if there’s to be a face-saving diplomatic touch). For example, look at how QBO & secular ozone waves vary with latitude:

Averaging something like that globally just leads to goofy interpretation. To say the least: The equator differs from the poles (!) (…which differ from one another too, due to land-ocean geometry).

Stephen Wilde wrote:“Paul, you seem to have improved your use of words to describe your concepts.I’m finding it easier to get a grip on what you mean now.”

Your data would seem to fit with my words. I’ve been proposing variation in the gradient of tropopause height between equator and poles as the culprit for changes in the global energy budget for some time and have suggested that the thermal effect then travels from equator to poles through the ocean basins over a period of ten years or so.

We have a complex interplay between the top down solar effect trying to affect the equator-pole waves from above and the ocean cycles trying to affect them from below.

The observed waves (shown by you) represent the net effect of that interplay over time.

Stephen, I would be very curious to see how you would (wisely) incorporate into your narrative a few key paragraphs on how the northern & southern hemispheres differ fundamentally due to land-ocean geometry.

image credit: Bill Illis

I also advise duly acknowledging Thomson (1995) as preceding Evans (2014) by 2 decades with the notch-delay concept. (It was telling to see how many were not even aware of the historically important Thomson paper.) Also remember that RJ (“Rick”) Salvador did a vastly superior job with that model (even though Rick didn’t seem to understand from aggregation fundamentals why his approach worked).

—

michele,
I recommend carefully studying the role of land-ocean geometry in the animations listed near the end (p.11) of this document.

PV: Abram also co-authored a 2013 paper about the Antarctic whose abstract says:

‘The warming has occurred in progressive phases since about AD 1460, but intensification of melt is non-linear, and has largely occurred since the mid-twentieth century. Summer melting is now at a level that is unprecedented over the past 1,000 years. We conclude that ice on the Antarctic Peninsula is now particularly susceptible to rapid increases in melting and loss in response to relatively small increases in mean temperature.’

“Stephen, I would be very curious to see how you would (wisely) incorporate into your narrative a few key paragraphs on how the northern & southern hemispheres differ fundamentally due to land-ocean geometry.”

I think I have mentioned somewhere that the different landmass distributions would lead to different atmospheric responses in each hemisphere.

The change in latitudinal positioning over the southern oceans should be much clearer than over the northern continents.

I would expect more meridionality of jet stream tracks north of the equator as compared to south of the equator when the sun is less active and I believe that is apparent from the deep surges of cold air that descend across the northern middle latitudes at such times.

I still think certain low average value solar parameters have to be met in order to have a significant impact on the climate regardless of SCD OR SCL, although I guess if the low average solar parameters I am talking about are attained one can argue solar cycle deceleration has indeed taken place.

“I still think certain low average value solar parameters have to be met in order to have a significant impact on the climate regardless of SCD OR SCL”

Agreed, but the findings of PV in relation to SCD and SCL are important in illustrating how waves of ozone variations travelling through the atmosphere affect average tropopause height between equator and poles through which the solar changes slowly effect climate changes as per my hypothesis.

Those findings are dependent on ‘average solar parameters’ so there is no disjunction there.

When I next update my hypothesis a link to PV’s work might be appropriate.

A lot of puzzling dots can be joined up by using PV’s data to link different phenomena together.

PV: I tried reading the Abram paper but was put off by frequent references to ‘greenhouse gases’ e.g the opening paragraph:

‘The positive trend in the SAM since AD 1940 is reproduced by
multi-model climate simulations forced with rising greenhouse
gas levels and later ozone depletion, and the long-term average
SAM index is now at its highest level for at least the past 1,000
years.’

and ‘Future greenhouse-driven increases in the SAM are also likely
to have implications’ [etc.]

SAM has been increasingly positive but it is not due to GHG effects. I think unlike the N.H low solar will not necessarily equate to a more negative SAM, or at least not to the degree as is in the N.H.

The geographical set up is 100% opposite between the N.H. and S.H which I feel can lead to a different atmospheric response between the Hemispheres to some degree.

Paul Vaughan in the case of solar activity parameters have to be considered: the geomagnetic field and the height above the surface. For example, different height and solar particles reach another protons GCR, which is associated with the secondary radiation. Neutrons have a short life time, which shows how close to the surface of the Earth reaches the GCR.

“The geographical set up is 100% opposite between the N.H. and S.H which I feel can lead to a different atmospheric response between the Hemispheres to some degree.
Stephen what do you think?”

I wouldn’t say 100% because that would imply all ocean in the southern hemisphere and all land in the northern hemisphere.

I do agree that there is a substantial difference as per my post at 5.33pm

Most likely the hemispheric responses are out of phase most of the time which accounts for current observations.

I suspect that there are times when they are in phase such as at the peak of the MWP or trough of the LIA but data is sparse on that because the Antarctic Continent was barely mapped never mind the temperature being checked at such times.

I like the synergy between multiple proposals that is pulled together by my hypothesis superimposed on the ideas of yourself, Paul, ren, Gerry and many others.

I think we need to drop the cosmic ray Svensmark hypothesis but we can accommodate the length of day concept, ocean cycles, and various magnetic field ideas within my proposition.

I’m aiming at a plausible synthesis of all the phenomena which are reflected in actual observations rather than model predictions.

As I have mentioned this site is the best in trying to get to the bottom of why/how the climate may change. As a group we can not be beat . I hope we will all work together going into the future and if we disagree sometimes it is okay that is how we advance.

it is impossible and not healthy to have 100 % agreement we need some give and take as long as it is sincere and not ridiculous in nature.

Just to clarify why I believe 2014.3 is the correct time for solar cycle 24 Max (smoothed sunspot numbers), my source was the Monthly solar cycle data chart from http://www.solen.info/solar/, which shows SC24 “likely solar max” to be in the month of April, 2014, with SSN 81.9. The smoothed sunspot numbers in the following three months are respectively 80.5, 79.7, and 78.6. The seven projected SSNs after that are all successively smaller. The SSNs in the seven months preceding April, 2014 are all successively smaller as well.

First of all let’s be sure everyone here understands this:
CO2 has no role whatsoever in the SAM reconstruction. Let’s not confuse and conflate the reconstruction process with interpretations of the reconstruction.

“Despite my criticism, I think that proxies along the longitudinal transect of South America are extremely important and that the BAS Antarctic Peninsula ice core isotope series from James Ross Island is of great importance (and that it meets virtually all CA criteria for an ex ante “good” proxy.)”

Archibald does seem to have a problem with the timing of the Earth’s thermal response to solar variation.

Paul’s observation that any solar effect has to be filtered through the decadal ozone wave from equator to pole (if I understand Paul correctly) before the thermal effect can become apparent does seem to be a plausible suggestion.

A consequence is self-camouflage in less well-constrained cross-sections of the total energy allocation.

The very thing that’s doing the pushing (the solar cycle) is through the pushing doing the turbulent signature scrambling (…in naively- &/or deceitfully-specified cross-sections of the total energy allocation = statistical paradox).

The solar cycle sweeps up after itself (…in naively- &/or deceitfully-specified cross-sections of the total energy allocation = statistical paradox).

The solar cycle covers its own tracks (…in naively- &/or deceitfully-specified cross-sections of the total energy allocation = statistical paradox).

I’m not interested in over-extending interpretations beyond the primary implications of observations rigidly constrained by the laws of (a) large numbers & (b) conservation of angular momentum.

I”’m not interested in over-extending interpretations beyond the primary implications of observations rigidly constrained by the laws of (a) large numbers & (b) conservation of angular momentum.”

That’s ok.

My main interest is interpretation and observations will determine whether I over extend or not.

“The solar cycle SPACES & PACES KINETIC mixing.”

I can see that but I go on to say that the spacing and mixing of kinetic energy is achieved via changes in tropopause heights between equator and poles. The top down solar effect works through that decadal ozone wave pattern that you have identified.

CO2 has no role whatsoever in the SAM reconstruction. Let’s not confuse and conflate the reconstruction process with interpretations of the reconstruction.

MY REPLY

I agree with that statement that co2 has no role in the SAM.

Paul, one thought I have as to why the SAM might respond in a different manner then it’s Northern counter part is unlike in the N.H. ,the polar vortex breaks down in the summer and in addition air from lower latitudes is easier entrained into the N.H. polar vortex in contrast to the isolated S.H. vortex.

Meaning when low solar conditions prevail and less ozone is created in the lower stratosphere as a whole the effects for the SAM are much greater in relationship to the lower latitudes surrounding it for ozone richer air can not be brought into the isolated Southern Polar Vortex, in contrast to the N.H. where ozone richer air can be transported into that vortex via lower latitudes. This in turn can weaken the N.H. polar vortex while no such process takes place in the S.H.

The northern annual cycle is a wild pump, while the southern wall is relatively stable:

That’s why the northern hemisphere (NH) is so sensitive (in well-constrained aggregate) to changes in how many summers/winters were solar maximum/minimum in the current solar cycle compared to the last (MEASURED BY SCD).

For example here’s how Atlantic hurricanes relate to solar cycle deceleration measured from annual sunspot numbers discretized with a threshold of 40 sunspots:

The LINEAR correlation between SCD & SCL is near-zero.
BUT for those who aren’t math-savvy it’s important to realize that in the complex plane the correlation is nearly perfect (BY MATHEMATICAL DEFINITION). (It’s just a 90 degree phase shift. The phase-correlation is nearly 1. Any small secular drift or integration constant accounts for the minor deviation from linear r^2 = 1 & orthogonal r^2 = 0.)

Math-unsavvy people:
Understand this clearly:

If you know SCL, you EXACTLY know SCD.

SCL — & it’s orthogonal companion SCD which is EXACTLY SPECIFIED from SCL — governs spatiotemporal field evolution where the combination of land-ocean geometry & the annual cycle dictates regional aberrations from the sunspot integral that is expressed with less aberration in regions where annual swings are more tame.

‘Right away you should be able to see the absurdity of this table. The average correlation of chronologies in the tree ring network to the target SAM index is a Mannian -0.01, with correlations ranging from -0.289 to +0.184.’

PV said:

‘The LINEAR correlation between SCD & SCL is near-zero.
BUT for those who aren’t math-savvy it’s important to realize that in the complex plane the correlation is nearly perfect (BY MATHEMATICAL DEFINITION). (It’s just a 90 degree phase shift. The phase-correlation is nearly 1. Any small secular drift or integration constant accounts for the minor deviation from linear r^2 = 1 & orthogonal r^2 = 0.)’

“It’s just a 90 degree phase shift. The phase-correlation is nearly 1”

So its like a motor vehicle taking a while to respond to deceleration or acceleration through the gears.A motor vehicle takes time to accelerate or decelerate and so it is with the mechanical componets within Earth’s atmosphere and oceans.

Whilst acceleration is occurring the gears lag behind a little so in the case of Earth’s atmosphere the lag is represented by the time taken for the decadal ozone wave to move poleward taking the jets and climate zones with it. Thereby decreasing global cloudiness and allowing the oceans to warm.

The opposite occurs during deceleration.

Since a single solar cycle is about ten years long each phase of deceleration (peak to trough of the cycle) or acceleration (trough to peak of the cycle) lasts about ten years but the time lag (inherent in the gearing) shifts the thermal response of the system by 90 degrees if Paul is correct and his graphs do suggest that he is.

If one gets a longer cycle with slower deceleration than the cycle before it there is a longer time lag too so the thermal response of the system can be much slower than David Archibald thought.

One has to integrate both solar cycle length AND solar cycle deceleration / acceleration because two cycles of the same length do not necessarily match in terms of the rate of deceleration or acceleration.

You can have a short cycle with a lot of acceleration or deceleration, a short cycle with less, a long cycle with more and a long cycle with less depending on the size of any solar variation from peak of one cycle to trough of the next.

And it all works because that ozone redistribution in the stratosphere between equator and poles set out in PV’s graphs alters the relative tropopause heights between equator and poles which changes global cloudiness by dragging the jets and climate zones with it.

Which means that my paras 6, 7 and 8 above may not be necessary but the rest stands.

Or maybe PV is wrong on that point?

Does SCL always provide SCD?

Suppose one has two pairs of solar cycles with all of the same length but one pair shows a large vertical distance between peaks and troughs and the other pair shows a small vertical distance between peaks and troughs.

Would acceleration/deceleration not be different for each pair?

Does the sun always maintain the same relationship between length of cycle and distance between peak and trough?

Thank you Paul and Stephen for continuing to explain the interplay between SCL and SCD. As a neophyte, dropping into this blog without prior knowledge of SCD, I was caught quite unprepared. I’m sure that’s happened to others just casually “dropping by”.

Salvatore said: “This site I wish had more visibility. I wish there was a way to make this happen.” Perhaps an offshoot of this website should be an education page to get everyone up to speed on the acronyms and nuances that differentiate it from standard climate change sites and standard climate change theories. That would certainly give the website more viewership and enhance its standing.

Stephen, about half way through your analog about motor vehicles I turned it into something similar but different. I internally converted your motor vehicle into an electric car that’s powered by an AC motor. I see this more in electrical terms, as in power factor, which is the reactive interplay between voltage and current. The current and voltage characteristics are out of phase with current lagging voltage by 90 degrees. In the case of Paul’s charts, SCL and SCD are current and voltage in a highly reactive AC motor. A resistive circuit has a PF=1. However, an inductive circuit requires taking the cosine of the phase angle between current and voltage. Power Factor is the ratio of true power to apparent power. A highly reactive circuit will have the voltage and current out of phase by 90 degrees. I think that’s what Paul has been saying all along.

So what I’m getting out of all of this is that global climate is the interplay between several out of phase sinusoidal drivers, like current and voltage that when integrated modulate global temperature, just as power factor modulates real power and reactive power. The sine waves pass through different locations on the curve therefore affecting different parts of the earth at different times. I think that Jibes with Paul’s “conceptualization in a spatio-temporal domain, because in reality there are spatial dimensions”.

I’m an Aerospace Engineer, not a scientist, so need to see these concepts in terms of my engineering world view. Perhaps this site’s education page could use simple concepts and analogies that might help the public at large understand better. Then, delve into the higher order mathematics (and beautiful multi-color charts) that back it all up.

Your alternative AC motor might be a useful analogy for some but I prefer the motor vehicle one because the motor vehicle has mechanical moving parts just as the Earth system does whereas the AC motor is all about electrical energy.

Although climate does indeed have several out of phase sinusoidal drivers I believe they are all derived from the initial top down solar energy input and then heavily modulated by bottom up ocean cycles.

For the purpose of predicting the general trend towards cooling or warming at any given moment one need only look at the net consequence of the interplay between those two factors (and all the others) as it causes climate zones to drift latitudinally and the jets to become more zonal or more meridional.

It is that net consequence that affects global cloudiness.

I’m not sure that adding substantially to the education page here would help the lay reader passing through.

What we need is a couple of years of distinct cooling to draw attention to alternative climate explanations.

Point of clarification:
SCD is calculated from SCL (and from nothing else).

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OB: Good to see awareness blossoming. Also SAM is a spatial pattern that by definition has contrasting + & – correlations. Maybe McIntyre hasn’t spent much time around mountainous terrain to know firsthand the extreme degree of spatial heterogeneity. Since it’s spatiotemporal, it’s not just time rate of change but a field problem also has x, y, & z, so you’ve got t, t’, t”, x, x’, x”, y, y’, y”, z, z’, & z”. There are people who do more advanced things in climate science, but we don’t tend to hear about them. Most of the stat inference (p-values, confidence intervals, etc.) stuff we hear about (NOT to be confused with exploratory stats which do not rely on assumptions) is based on FALSE assumptions. (You might as well call it politics.) McIntyre likes JRI, but he omitted it from the table. If you compare the JRI curve with the SAM reconstruction, you’ll easily notice something pretty obvious (I’ll be sharing more something like weeks from now). I’m left wondering why (?) McIntyre doesn’t just do whatever he thinks should be done instead of only criticizing. I’m not convinced he would do the best thing because he’s making false assumptions. I’ve never looked into his saga with Mann, but I strongly suspect that if I did I would find that (depending on which things I focused on) both were wrong and both were right. There are easily a million things I need to do before I would make time for that, so it will probably never happen. OB: Thanks for bringing this up. It very helpfully caused me to glare at a bunch of things and notice a bunch more interesting things to work on. I’m quite pleased with what has come to my attention as a result — much appreciated.

Yes, cycle 16 doesn’t quite ‘fit the mould’ as it were, but it still has a sharp rise quite early on in the cycle and a shallow descent later, which is characteristic of most of the solar cycles on record.

Solar cycle 8 looks like the ‘standard’ pattern to me: one third ‘up’, then a long descent with a few ‘wiggles’.
Note the biggest wiggle occurs at the same part of the cycle as the ‘late’ peak of cycle 16.

Stephen:
not quite, but close
SCD is a function of SCL at more than one time. (It’s a time rate of change of SCL. (spacing, pacing, & equilibration rate — not just thermal — don’t forget KINETIC (law-constrained observations STRESS kinetic) — & not just sensible but latent — and not just surface but mixed at height & depth — overall turbulent mixing pump))

I think it’s worth stressing again that this only steers (due to land-ocean geometry & the annual cycle) regional aberrations from the global attractor, which is the sunspot integral.

PV: ‘OB: Thanks for bringing this up. It very helpfully caused me to glare at a bunch of things and notice a bunch more interesting things to work on. I’m quite pleased with what has come to my attention as a result — much appreciated.’

Yes, I see that, but SC24 is likely going to be way longer then the 11.2 years minimum to minimum SC10 displayed. SC24 minimum or start was Jan 2008. We are still in the maximum 7 years later which looks like this cycle end may be late 2021 or early 2022.

But even more important is I want to see how the AP Index /Solar Wind Speed performs as SC24 winds down over the next several years. This key for potential climatic impacts. Will coronal holes impact those values going forward?

One observation is the sun was entering an overall active mode(sc10) while this time it is in a minimum mode and maybe going into a Grand Minimum. I think using past solar activity when the sun was in an active mode to try to predict what the sun may do when in an inactive mode will not work out to well.

BTW, I need to give full credit to solen.info/solar/images/ for both both the Solar Cycle 24 Progress image and the Similar Amplitude Solar Cycles image. They are both updated by solen.info/solar/ every month, and are very useful for tracking SC24 progress.

SC24 would be totally unlike any other known solar cycle if monthly SSNs increase even to 90 in the future. Why do you think they could increase to as high as 125? SC4 had a very steep unfluctuating rise to a distinct single peak.

My error for not seeing that you used monthly solar flux instead of monthly sunspot numbers. The F10.7 SF 90 day average at 1 AU did reach a peak of 156 sfu at Jan 15, 2015. I note that presently, it is 149 sfu, according to http://www.solen.info/solar/.

As was agreed by Bob Weber in an early comment, solar flux measurements cannot be used to compare solar flux data with sunspot data earlier than 1949. I accordingly modify my statement to read that SC24 would be totally unlike any other known solar cycle if the smoothed SSN increases above the April, 2014 SC24 second peak level of 81.9 in the future.